The choices for today were:
1. Take four magazines and choose pictures you do and don’t relate to. On one side of a piece of cardboard, glue the pictures to which you connect. On the other, glue the pictures to which you don’t connect. Do some streaming or dialoguing for insight. Pretend you have to hold up your collages a give a presentation entitled access to my creativity. Write down what the collages tell you about your soul and creative life.
2. Write to a young person and tell him what is most important about life and how creativity fits into this. What does your advice tell you about you and you life?
3. Who would you want to see or spend an hour with? Why that person? What does it tell you about yourself and your creativity?
The first assignment sounded so cool, except I do not have magazines in the house L -- so that down, I was feeling kind of stuck and non-creative. Perhaps because I was tired. So laid down took a nap, made these breadsticks out of canned biscuit dough, rolled them in butter, baked them, then bathed them in a garlic, salt, oregano butter sauce and served them piping hot with a festive salad, you know one of those kinds where you empty the refrigerator in it, and ate that with a bowl of pasta a friend made tossed with a marinara sauce that has been passed down in his family. Nothing like authentic Italian sauce – so much different then what you buy in a jar. I may never be able to do that again.
Ok, so full stomach, rested (well slightly), and feeling light in my spirit I started thinking about who I would want to see or spend an hour with. Do I have to pick just one? Can’t do that. For sure, I would like to spend an hour with a few spiritual teachers amongst them Buddha and Jesus. I really want to know what they think about the statues of them smiling at each other on that island in Vietnam I think it is. Ok and I want to spend an hour with Don Miguel Ruiz and just study with him and hear his reflections. I also want to spend an hour with Osho. I would also love to see my parents again. There are not words to describe what that would mean to me. I would probably cry like a river at the end of the hour, but it would do my heart good. There are so many things I want to tell them face to face and I would love to see my son nick again. I know he needs a hug from me and I would love to be able to hold him and to tell him face to face how much he is loved. Writing wise, I would love to spend an hour with Pat Parker, Adrienne Rich, and Audre Lorde, especially Pat Parker. I have always had a deep appreciation for her poetry. Since the first time I read one of her poems, I was hooked. And I would love to spend an hour with Gloria Anzaldua and talk about living in the Borderlands. Cooking wise there are a few people I would love to spend an hour with – Cat Cora for one because I love the way she thinks in the kitchen – so creative and playful and omg I cannot remember her name but it will come to me later – but she was one of the chefs on the melting pot when it was on the food network.
I have to laugh because at one point in time I would have told you I am not very creative, but I know that I am and my interests may seem to be all over the place, but they are not. When you look across those to whom I am drawn and inspired there are some real similarities. There is simplicity, realness, honesty and a passion for life. They all walk in the fullness of who they are and I would love to know their stories. I admire them for their passion and their strength. I know that they did not achieve what they achieved over night and so it is a constant reminder to me to continue to work at being the best me I can be each and every day of my life. Be me. Be love. Speak truth in love. Cook with your heart. write without fear of what others are going to think because you are not writing for them, you are writing to give voice to the message of love that I was created to deliver. Be love. It reminds me that everything I do, my desire to continue to evolve spiritually in my own life, to help others is about love. My teaching is about love. It is about me working to make this world a better place. My cooking is about sharing my love for food with others and letting them taste the love. My writing is about love. Through all of these things, I am on a constant journey meeting myself over and over again and learning to love myself more as I get to know myself more. The more I allow myself to release the fears and embrace my own love of who I am and who I am becoming, the more I allow myself to be creative.
I can be my own worst enemy. Sometimes I do not think others will be interested in what I have to say, but that is not for me to decide and then I have to look at why I think that. Where does that belief come from? if I am struggling, if I am going through and can write about that then maybe it will give somebody else the inspiration to know they can make it through as well. I am coming to realize that it is important for me to practice and work at being as creative as possible. It is exciting. It is like giving birth. Every time I am able to take words or food or ideas and weave them together into something other then what it was, when I am able to transform it through the gift of creativity I was blessed with is exciting and humbling all at the same time. humbling because it makes me wonder if this is what the Creator felt when the Creator stops and looks and reflects but also excited by how the Creator has blessed me with the ability to create, to see a new life whether it be a spiritual energy, a food creation or a written creation come into being. It is a blessing to be part of that birthing process.